Friday, August 5, 2011

Moving Thoughts Friday














Every Friday I’m going to ask a question. The questions I choose might be ambiguous on purpose. The goal is to have you answer the question according to your beliefs, where you’re at in life or a circumstance that might have recently impacted you. The only thing I ask is that you provide an explanation for why you answered the way you did.
~

It’s my hope to understand you better through this and also to gain a greater understanding of humanity and how people make decisions.












Ch ch ch changes…August is going to be a month all about change for your Moving Thoughts Friday questions.




Starting with…


What book changed you?










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25 comments:

  1. I think several books have changed me, helped me to grow over the years, the scriptures being the one most noteworthy. Also, a lot of the classics. But the first books I remember reading as a kid that have stayed with me all these years are Lloyd Alexander's The Book of Three series.

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  2. Okay, that's a really hard question for me. I think every novel that I continue to think about long after I've turned the last page has changed me in some way. And it's almost always about some character that made me cry, laugh and fall in love.

    But there are also those non-fiction books that have made me look a life's big issues a little differently.

    So, since you didn't say novel, you said book, I'm going to go with When Helping Hurts. This book completely changed how I look at helping others.

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  3. Oh wow Wendy! :) this is a tough one...let's see, i think i will go with a recent one "Women Food and God" by Geneen Roth. Her book helped me alot with some of my own struggles with body-image and the way i eat. The book also reminded me that God...is...in...control!

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  4. Wendy, the list is long and strange - starting with the Bible and including things like Lord of the Rings and Oh The Places You'll Go. But most recently (Like in the last 5ish years) I think the book that's changed me/made me reevaluate the most is The Shack. I read it during our very difficult adoption, after suffering through 3 miscarraiges...it was a dark time. But that book helped me look at things differently.

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  5. The Word of God, the Bible.

    And Jesus Calling, which I am reading for the first time. Wow. I'm developing a more intimate relastionship with Jesus than ever before, sitting as a child in His presence, soaking His enormous love.

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  6. That's a really tough question. I'd say that any book that moves me and has a lot of heart stays with me. For example: They Sky Is Everywhere.

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  7. The Color Purple by Alice Walker stands out as a life changing book. I read it while I was in my 20's. It gave me a new perspective of God, forgiveness, perseverence and hope.

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  8. Hannah Hurnard's Hinds Feet on High Places and Eugenia Price's historical novel Bright Captivity. (Yes, I learn through story!) There are others, but those are the two I always think of when this question comes up.

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  9. Oh, I can't remember the name of the book, but it was definitely by Karen Kingsbury. I think it was in her 911 series. Totally made me think of heaven a little differently.

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  10. Jennifer Donnelly's A Northern Light. I didn't even have to think about that one. I can relate to Mattie Gokey on so many levels - her hardships with family, her feeling of inferiority to her friends, her battle between obligation and the heart's desire, her passion for writing. I first read it when I was 16 and, not being all that into period stories, I didn't really appreciate it the first go around. But, for some reason, I felt a pull to read it again several only about a year or so later, and absolutely LOVED it. It became my favorite book, and still remains one of my favorites, if not THE favorite. I haven't read it in a while, not since that last time when I was 17 or 18, so I've really been wanting to read it again. It was actually Mattie Gokey's actions at the end of the book that inspired me to change my major to English my freshman year before telling my parents about it.

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  11. No, I take that back. I was 14, or had just turned 15 when I read it. Oops. :)

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  12. The biography of J. Hudson Taylor.

    I loved that book, devoured it when I was about 15, and have often recalled his tremendous faith when I'm in need of a little more faith of my own.

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  13. I'll say the Bible, but specifically over the last couple of years, Proverbs. Two things it has done: 1) Given me a glimpse at how my life SHOULD be in respect to God and 2) Helped me see where I fall short.

    Unfortunately, #2 really stands out the most :)

    wb

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  14. Several books touched me, but the New Testament changed me.

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  15. The Bible goes without saying, right?

    For me, Experiencing God was a big changer.

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  16. OK, I'm going with Katie and assuming the Bible goes without saying.
    The book "These is My Words" (a novel) changed me. The author's (Nancy Turner) writing captivated me. To this day, I can recall scenes. After I read it, I didn't go back and re-read it for years because it was such a powerful book. Maybe it wouldn't be for you, but, for whatever reason, it was for me. When my sister requested books for her birthday, guess what book I sent her?
    Another reason I love this book was that it's based on the author's grandmother's journals.
    How did it change me? It challenges me as a writer. Can I ever achieve that kind of a writer-reader connection?
    And it showed me through fiction the value of real life--both the joys and the sorrows.

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  17. Oh, I have to qualify this; I'm making it what book changed you this week? (Otherwise this little box could not contain my answers...)

    That would be One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, my current read. Why? Because I'm seeing the relationship between thankfulness and pride, salvation, so many things.

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  18. Aside from the Bible, I'd have say the one book that most changed me was Little Women. I loved the story, but most of all I thrilled to see a writer watch her dream come true. I first read the book when I was a young teen. I'd already been harboring a dream of being a writer for a good five or six years, and Jo's experience fueled my desire.

    I still have the tear-stained, unabridged, hardcover copy of Little Women that I spent $10 of allowance money on back in the early seventies when that sum was a fortune.

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  19. "The Power of Positive Thinking," by Norman Vincent Peale. It's an older book but still applicable. I read it once per year for the last 15 - it never fails to make me feel good and reminds me to stay positive.

    Also, "Living, Loving & Learning," by Leo Buscaglia. He taught a college class on Love and is very motivational.

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  20. The book that has had the greatest impact on my life is the Bible.

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  21. Hi Wendy -

    No contest - the Bible. After all, it's the greatest love story ever told. My relationship with the Lord has changed the way I view everything else in life.

    Blessings,
    Susan :)

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  22. Two books changed me.

    First one was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis.

    I had it -- and the others in the series forever. But I hadn't actually read it until my daughter was a baby (she's 15 now). My sister was very ill in the hospital and there was nothing to do for long stretches of time except sit and wait .. so I grabbed this book off the shelf and read it.

    I was transfixed. Transformed. Transported.

    Can't say enought about it.

    Second one was a cookbook. For real.

    It was Pat Conroy's cookbook. This was about 2 years ago. We had just returned from a beach trip to South Carolina and while there I'd seen his name here and there.. hadn't ever read his books. I did know he had written the book that Prince of Tides was based on. That was about it. I liked the movie, but I didn't want to read the book, and I didn't really have an interest in reading his other stuff (not that I was dis-interested), just that I looked past .. to whatever else.

    So, then we returned a couple days later, we were going to a movie (Time Traveler's Wife) and had to wait.. wait in a bookstore nearby. Went in, and there was Pat Conroy's books front and center (South of Broad had just come out). Along with his new book was a COOKBOOK by him.

    Well, I picked up the cookbook. I adore cookbooks.. didn't know he cooked or wrote about cooking, but I figured it was something I could flip through waiting on the movie time.

    First page. TRANSFIXED. It is not just a cookbook. It is a story of his life and why he cooks or writes or does whatever it is that he does whenever he does it.

    The man can tell a story like no-one I've ever read. The reason I like HIS stories is he tells the truth. Raw unvarnished truth. And not just to be talking, but to get across the meaning of life as he is trying to understand it.

    It was like he reached through the pages and touched my soul.

    I started to understand myself.

    THAT is the power of a book, of a writer, of someone who bares their soul in the chance that someone is made better in a moment of time.

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  23. For Whom the Bell Tolls.

    Not even totally sure how it changed me, but it definitely did

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  24. The Power of a Praying Wife changed me. It changed my dialogue with God. It helped me find the words - though the Lord knows my heart, it helped me articulate those feelings. It brought me courage, encouragement and even greater obedience to His path for me and for my marriage. It reinforced the tone of what "respect your husband" means and deepened the love I already have for him.

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  25. Like Anne, my life changing book is Hind's Feet in High Places. I still think about scenes in that book when I'm walking through different times in my spiritual life.

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